Comments on: How Jefferson Heard Banjar

By: dale

dale — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 06:21:10 +0000

(o)

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:08:55 +0000

Easier said than done! The banjo isn’t like the guitar, which any idiot can learn to play.

By: Clive Hicks-Jenkins

Clive Hicks-Jenkins — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:49:35 +0000

Then acquire the skills and do it. It’ll be a new poem-form and you’ll be the progenitor!

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:25:10 +0000

Glad you like them, Dick. Interesting suggestion. If only I had the banjo-playing skills to adapt them (maybe a talking blues-style rhythmic reading over a simple tune?).

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:23:23 +0000

Thanks. It is starting to look a bit like an on-going series, insh’allah. Here’s what I just wrote in answer to comment on Facebook from a banjo-playing cousin, who wondered if my new-found interest meant that I was picking up the banjo myself: This is what I do in lieu of making real banjo music. But I’ve always loved the banjo, especially clawhammer, and I’ve always been fascinated by the weird old America where African and folk European (and also Native American, though not so much with the banjo) mixed in unexpected ways. I need to do some more actual research on the history of the banjo, but sometimes too much knowledge can get in the way of the imagination, so I’ll limit myself to internet sources for a little while.

By: Dick

Dick — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:02:28 +0000

I love this trio of banjo poems, Dave. They’re listening poems – they ought to be played out loud!

By: Clive Hicks-Jenkins

Clive Hicks-Jenkins — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:35:11 +0000

Three poems linked thematically. Is this a series? Individually they work beautifully, though together they gather momentum and drop me into another world. I love going on rides to unexpected places with you Dave.